Developers need to be clear in their communication with gamers.

Informed consumers routinely go into game purchases armed with dozens of previews, reviews, and pages of forum chatter shaping their decision. For many gamers, though, the decision of whether to buy or not is made solely on the basis of the back-of-the-box ad copy or its modern-day PC equivalent—the Steam description page. So when that page starts making promises the game itself can't keep, those buyers are going to be justifiably angry.

Such was the case this week with Hammerpoint Interactive's The War Z (not to be confused with ArmA II mod Day Z), which hit Steam on Monday and quickly became the top-grossing game on the service. That success was thanks in part to an impressive list of features listed on the Steam page, including persistent worlds of up to 400 square kilometers, private servers, "dozens of available skills," and "up to 100 players per game server."

Too bad none of those things were actually in the game that thousands of people spent $15 or more to buy. These and other issues with the initial Steam release have led to widespread player outrage on forums like Reddit, NeoGAF, and Steam itself. The complaints have gotten so bad that Steam has "temporar[ily] removed the sale offering of the title until we have time to work with the developer and have confidence in a new build."

“There's no such thing as 'Release'”

In an interview with GameSpy, Hammerpoint Executive Producer Sergey Titov offered a limited apology to players angry about the Steam listing, which he says included both current features and some planned for future updates (the Steam page was updated a day or so after launch to clarify this distinction). He also suggested the vast majority of players were satisfied with the game and that only a few misinterpreted what was meant by the Steam description.

Titov defended the initial Steam listing as technically accurate. While the game allowed only 50 players per server at first, for instance, Titov noted private servers are able to host the promised 100 (those servers were later opened up to the public). And while the Steam listing implies multiple, huge worlds of up to 400 square kilometers, Titov said that the single, initial map does indeed fall in the low end of the promised "100 to 400 sq. km" range (though there's some reason to doubt that estimate as well). A couple offorum threads on the official War Z forums offered more apologies alternating with brittle defensiveness.

GA screenshot from The War Z's Steam release clearly shows parts of the game still labeled as "alpha functionality."

In any case, Titov's main defense was the relativistic claim that an online game like this is never really "finished" in the way that a retail game of the past might have been. "My point is—online games are [a] living breathing GAME SERVICE," he told GameSpy. "This is not a boxed product that you buy one time. It's [an] evolving product that will have more and more features and content coming. This is what The War Z is."

After offering The War Z as an alpha release for pre-orderers in October (and as a closed beta earlier this month), the version that hit Steam on Monday is what Hammerpoint considers a "Foundation release." The developer said it's ready for sale. But that semantic distinction still isn't noted on the Steam page, and it doesn't mean the game is complete. "There's no such thing as 'Release' for an online game," said Titov. "As far as I'm concerned The War Z is in stage when we're ready to stop calling it Beta."

This isn't a sufficient defense for lying to (or at least misleading) players about your game's current feature list, of course. But statements like these reflect a recent reality that should be familiar to most gamers: the game you buy on launch day is rarely the final version of the game. Even AAA titles are often faced with massive patches that fix issues found between the time the game was "released" and the day it was finally "completed" (see Assassin's Creed III for just one recent example). Aside from fixing glitches, post-release patching might turn the game you bought into a different game entirely through gameplay re-balancing and tweaking.

By and large, gamers are by now used to this "release first, patch later" world. But the scale of the difference between what is promised and what is initially delivered seems to be increasing. Social and mobile game developers now routinely discuss releasing games when they have a "minimum viable product," meaning a barely playable game that will be updated constantly as it attracts early adopters, often using live player data to guide the continuing design process. Massive success stories like Minecraft have made millions selling what were clearly labeled as "alpha" and "beta" versions of the game with vague promises about when the "final" release would hit. Kickstarter lets people essentially purchase pre-orders of games that often exist only as vaguely described concepts, going well beyond the more limited retail pre-orders for nearly complete physical games of the past.

The difference between “finished” and “complete”

Enlarge/ Many players felt misled after buying Cortex Command when it was still "unfinished."

The line between a game that is still being developed and one that is ready to be sold and played by the buying public is fuzzier than ever. And this isn't the first time that fuzzy line has led to controversy on Steam. In September, Cortex Commandhit the service and immediately faced loud complaints from players upset that the $20 game they had purchased was still unfinished. While the developer's own sales page tells potential buyers in bold letters that the game is a "work in progress," the Steam description meekly notes near the bottom that the game is "still being improved" and is "not in a completely polished state yet."

In light of the controversy, Cortex Command's developers issued a lengthy FAQ that gets into some pretty minute semantic territory about the game's development status. "To me, a 'finished' game is totally done and won't really be touched again by its developers, ever (save for ports, etc). 'Complete' means it is fully playable..." the FAQ reads in part. "On one hand, calling a piece of software '1.0' strongly implies completeness. On the other hand, to me it's also still only the very first revision that is fully usable," it says later.

This is the world we live in now, where developers have to make a distinction between "playable" and "complete." Making that distinction requires a new, heightened level of communication between developers and players about the precise, current state of the game being sold, a standard The War Z definitely failed to achieve.

For its part, Valve apologized for letting The War Z onto its service before fully vetting it. "From time to time a mistake can be made and one was made by prematurely issuing a copy of War Z for sale via Steam," a spokesman told Ars. "Those who purchase the game and wish to continue playing it via Steam may do so. Those who purchased the title via Steam and are unhappy with what they received may seek a refund by creating a ticket at our support site here."

That's all well and good for this situation, but it seems clear that Valve needs to update its guidelines for how "finished" a game needs to be before it can hit Steam. It should also provide rules to developers for to describe unfinished games on their Steam pages. This is especially true as Steam opens its service up to approved Greenlight games from developers that often don't have the same proven track record or internal quality standards of major developers (some Steam users are already complaining about games being greenlit before they're sufficiently done). Perhaps an update to the Steam refund policy—offering players their money back within a short time after the first time the game is played—would alleviate some of these issues (Valve currently makes it nearly impossible to get a refund on most purchases made through Steam).

Regardless of the precise fix, Valve needs to address these issues in order to maintain its rock-solid integrity as the most trustworthy and reliable downloadable game delivery service on the Internet. This isn't the last time an issue like this is going to come up. Valve should be more prepared for it next time.

Promoted Comments

I purchased "Ravaged" recently. Upon purchase, there was a disclaimer on the opening splash screen that instructed me to go into my game directory and change the name of one of the files (which would have to be done EVERY SINGLE TIME I attempted to log-in and play it). Fortunately, there was patch recently released which fixed this issue, but there was absolutely NO mention of this when I purchased it on the Steam page. Based on this experience and the unsettling info in this article, you can bet it'll be a cold day in Hell before I go anywhere near any of their "Greenlight" games until they can prove their quality control issues are revised.

The way you put it in the article makes it sound like there was a Steam sale on the game but has since been revoked (presumably returning the game it's regular price?)

A bit confusing. Just my two cents.

Agreed. The article wording was confusing, and failed to clearly relate and/or discuss what's otherwise one of the single most important facts of the story.

However, the douchey tone in Kyle's reply is crystal clear. Was that an appropriate and professional response to an innocent poster who was just trying to share relevant information? It's a rhetorical question, of course. The answer is obviously no.

The game is awful. The zombies are a minor obstacle that can easily be foiled by jumping on top of anything at all. The "survivor" aspect means you drink a random can of soda and eat a granola bar every 2 hours you play, which is incredibly dull. The only part that was remotely fun was the PvP aspect of the game with friends -- even then it takes forever to finally get any decent weapon and other people will mercilessly kill you for hours before you can get that weapon. Then when you finally take out some other guy who shoots everyone on sight and get some gear, you'll get 1 shot killed by a hacker with a shotgun father than you can reasonably shoot with a sniper and die -- losing all your gear and starting over. Its also a pay to win game where you can buy better guns, scopes etc. Which you'll have to do over and over because you WILL die, even if you are cautious and good at the game a hacker will get you eventually. Avoid like the plague

Ideally, Steam would test the games first, but that takes lots of resources. That's why Microsoft charges for xbox live certification - they test the thing. I'm sure Valve doesn't have the resources now to test everything that they post. If they wanted to test everything, then I don't see how they could do it without charging the devs.

But... Random idea: Maybe Valve could look into something like enforced betas for new developers? They could require that the dev allow a certain beta period, even for finished games. I think it wouldn't be too hard to lure gamers with the idea of "hey, help us test and get a free game". Steam certainly has the install base to support crowd-sourced testing.

They could allow established devs who keep up a good reputation would be able to get by w/o the mandatory beta period.

I (and many other gamers) would do this for free. You need to have a set of rules (I.e unless you provide a proper bug report, you don't get to keep the game)

Why are we so upset at Steam? It's the developer that released an incomplete game and was at best misleading (and at worst outright lying) about the game's features. If they released it in boxed retail, we wouldn't gripe about how GameStop or Walmart was too lax about what they sold.

The fact that this is a recurring theme is distressing. It was bad enough when the publisher/developer says "Don't bother to QA it now, ship it now and we'll patch it later." Now the idea is "Don't bother to finish it, ship it now and we'll add the rest of the features later"? I suppose it's a consequence of letting all the important decisions for the games be made by business people, instead of people who actually understand games.

When you buy a game from Walmart or Gamestop, how much involvement do they have with your gaming experience after buying the game?Typically zero, since they have nothing to do with the game after you have purchased it and removed it from their store in order to take it home.

You cannot remove the game from the store when you buy through Steam, they retain the right to take the game away from you whenever they want, as well usually as being the only way to access the game if you bought it from Steam.

If they want to manage someone's digital rights over their "purchases", then they have a responsibility regarding those "purchases" that other stores do not.

By my reckoning this does not 'happen all the time'. It's not fuzzy and it's not a gray area, it's fraud. If you say your game contains maps 'up to 400 km' and no such 400 km map exists in the game then you are lying. Straight up, dirt simple. It is not the same as releasing a game with bugs, even a lot of them, as no such deception has taken place in that case.

What it should say on the features list is 'these are features we hope to include but which currently dwell solely in the magical land of imagination'.

Ah, the tragedy of first-world problems. Honestly some of the complaints really sound like entitled whining (i.e. my $15 only got me 100 sq km!). Even though it seems this could be easily remedied by properly vetted descriptions, Steam has owned up here by offering refunds.

This is just one of the many reasons I simply don't buy titles at launch anymore. There are plenty of other things to play, and it's nice to evaluate a purchase after others have put mileage on it and the hypes dies down. It's easier at that point to separate the quality titles from the garbage... which you can then probably get for a discount.

Ah, yes, FWP. I'm not sure that applies here. I'd think it's more likely apt to buy a BMW and find what amounts to a Ford Pinto underneath it all. The description said I was buying a BMW. If they told me this is a new Ford, that's fine, I'd know exactly what I was getting, and make the decision to spend the money or not. This is different. They aren't saying my 15 dollars got me 100 sq km, they're saying you told me my 15 dollars was going to get me 400 sq km.

Like buying a 16 ounce steak with veggies and a potato, and being served a 4 ounce steak with one carrot when your order comes out. That's the appropriate correlation.

Now keep in mind I don't disagree the deceptive description is wrong. The game was misrepresented - but not in the heinous manner that much of the outcry suggests. I just think the level of attention on this is, in my opinion, a bit out of proportion. Regardless, the issue has been both recognized and rectified by Steam quite quickly.

But no, these correlations are not appropriate. Let's disregard the fact that comparing a BMW and a $15 game is silly. It is not a one-time delivery like your steak or BMW. Like it or not that's not the MMO business model, you are paying for a service. It would be one thing if it just didn't work at all (which technically was the case for many recent high profile titles - Diablo 3 / KOTOR). So then if it does work we are arguing over features -or lack thereof- where you very quickly start splitting some fine hairs. It's not too different a situation - if you are looking for an analogy- from all the crap you could order in the back of the Popular Science back in the day.

If this is your first MMO purchase, I apologize but it is the unfortunate reality of the business. I think the best way to change this is speak with our dollars and carefully consider our purchases (sale or not).

It's not fuzzy and it's not a gray area, it's fraud. If you say your game contains maps 'up to 400 km' and no such 400 km map exists in the game then you are lying.

Exactly. Up to means everything from zero UP TO that specific number. Not to mention when you say "maps", the plural form of "map", it suggests that there is at least a second map and not just ONE, which is sounds like the actual case.

Being open about planed features is great but I'm pretty sure a Steam page can be updated and should be current. Not some wishlisting garbage that may or may not ever actually happen if they suddenly walked away.

The part that peeved me was that I pre-ordered it for 20$ and it ended up on Steam for 15$.

Other than that... I actually found the game to be enjoyable, my roommate and I play it quite often. There's no much to do in the way of just simply surviving and scavenging. But a lot of what was listed on the Steam page is much of what has been promised since the pre-order date. Also... the map started out very small and now it is fully open, they've added plenty more to the game through development. I won't disagree with many of the negative comments about the forums, the bannings, or much of anything else, but the description, while misleading, has just been a list of what has been promised since the beginning. They should have noted that not everything was available but those were the plans.

It's a slippery slope for Steam. They can lock down tighter on when and how games can be released with the potential backlash of being seen as becoming more like iOS. It's incredibly difficult for any service like this to nail down the 'proper' amount of regulation.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here but... How about a game isn't released until it's actually done. Too draconian?

Yeah, that's way too draconian. It was never on Steam, but when was Minecraft "done"? /quote]

It was done when it was playable and the player never noticed any missing content. You know.. finished? Adding content to a completed game is not quite the same.

You must not have played Minecraft in Alpha! Notch made updates that often broke the game. Often things that worked stopped working after an update. He promised updates soon that ended up taking months. None of that bothered me, since I signed up for alpha though. The game was absolutely not "finished" when Notch started selling it. He made that clear though.

It's a slippery slope for Steam. They can lock down tighter on when and how games can be released with the potential backlash of being seen as becoming more like iOS. It's incredibly difficult for any service like this to nail down the 'proper' amount of regulation.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here but... How about a game isn't released until it's actually done. Too draconian?

Yeah, that's way too draconian. It was never on Steam, but when was Minecraft "done"? When was it worth buying? Pretty much as soon as Notch started selling it. At the most, Steam should consider having a clear indication that the user is buying an "alpha" product.

I just don't see how it's a problem for me to be able play "Towns" or "Cortex Command" right now through Steam. I sometimes like the idea of playing a game early in its developement.

I don't need Valve to police the games for sale. I don't see how people are not doing some basic research before buying a game beyound what the game creators are saying. You clearly have an internet connection and there's a link right to the forums. If you buy something without reading a single review, it's hard to feel to bad for you.

If a company says misleading things about its games, then don't buy from that company. Why should Valve do anything more than facilitate the sale and download?

Clovis, I'm not entirely sure why you're starting to downboats, but I actually agree with you. Even though I would love devs to finish something before it's released, I wouldn't want Steam to hold back a possible gem (like Minecraft) solely because it's buggy or missing features. I would just like them to tell me those issues prior to me finding out on my own, which is what you said. That doesn't seem too unreasonable. I use the forums religiously for new games, but not everyone can or we'd be sitting around twiddling our thumbs, waiting for the first post. So I think the Steam warning would suffice.

I purchased "Ravaged" recently. Upon purchase, there was a disclaimer on the opening splash screen that instructed me to go into my game directory and change the name of one of the files (which would have to be done EVERY SINGLE TIME I attempted to log-in and play it). Fortunately, there was patch recently released which fixed this issue, but there was absolutely NO mention of this when I purchased it on the Steam page. Based on this experience and the unsettling info in this article, you can bet it'll be a cold day in Hell before I go anywhere near any of their "Greenlight" games until they can prove their quality control issues are revised.

By my reckoning this does not 'happen all the time'. It's not fuzzy and it's not a gray area, it's fraud. If you say your game contains maps 'up to 400 km' and no such 400 km map exists in the game then you are lying. Straight up, dirt simple. It is not the same as releasing a game with bugs, even a lot of them, as no such deception has taken place in that case.

What it should say on the features list is 'these are features we hope to include but which currently dwell solely in the magical land of imagination'.

Then nobody could rightfully complain.

Cleaner is exactly correct. This isn't the 'gray area' that people seem to think it is. Either the features in the description are present in the game or they're not. It really is that binary.

For projected additional features, one simply denotes them as such.

"Up to 100 players" doesn't mean 50 players. It doesn't mean 30 players. It doesn't mean 96 players. It means that 100 players could play on the same world at the same time.

I had wishlisted this game, but it looks like I'll pull it off. I've had enough of shady developers releasing half-baked products on a trumped up list of features. I don't mind beta, 'in-progress' or additional post-release features. But I absolutely hate LYING. That's what they did. They lied.

"Up to 100 players" doesn't mean 50 players. It doesn't mean 30 players. It doesn't mean 96 players. It means that 100 players could play on the same world at the same time.

Well technically it's still true. The servers COULD let players play 100 players play at the same time. The developer just has to edit whatever database field to allow it to do it. He actually said that the servers can handle much more than 100. Is it BS sneaky speak to try and get more players to buy his shovelware version of DayZ? Yes. But I don't think he could be sued for false advertising.

In an interview with GameSpy, Hammerpoint Executive Producer Sergey Titov offered a limited apology to players angry about the Steam listing, which he says included both current features and some planned for future updates (the Steam page was updated a day or so after launch to clarify this distinction). He also suggested the vast majority of players were satisfied with the game and that only a few misinterpreted what was meant by the Steam description.

As soon as you get a developer blaming the gaming community for their inability to clearly communicate the state of finished product, you know have a problem.

In an interview with GameSpy, Hammerpoint Executive Producer Sergey Titov offered a limited apology to players angry about the Steam listing, which he says included both current features and some planned for future updates (the Steam page was updated a day or so after launch to clarify this distinction). He also suggested the vast majority of players were satisfied with the game and that only a few misinterpreted what was meant by the Steam description.

As soon as you get a developer blaming the gaming community for their inability to clearly communicate the state of finished product, you know have problem.

"Up to 100 players" doesn't mean 50 players. It doesn't mean 30 players. It doesn't mean 96 players. It means that 100 players could play on the same world at the same time.

Well technically it's still true. The players COULD let players play 100 players play at the same time. The developer just has to edit whatever database field to allow it to do it. He actually said that the servers can handle much more than 100. Is it BS sneaky speak to try and get more players to buy his shovelware version of DayZ? Yes. But I don't think he could be sued for false advertising.

No, it's not technically true. Either I have access to servers/worlds that host up to 100 people, or I don't. The game features description doesn't mention any contingencies, and thus the player shouldn't have to expect to deal with such contingencies. It doesn't mention that the community has to vote on it, nor does it say that it's ultimately up to the developer to determine the number of players per world. It says, in black and white (literally) "Up to 100 Players per Game Server". That's listed under KEY FEATURES.

This isn't murky water. It's clear cut. The developer listed features that simply weren't part of the game. They had no problem taking money, but when it came time to explain why their game lacked many of their key features, they tried to dodge the question, blaming it on "perception". It's BS, and we all know it.

In an interview with GameSpy, Hammerpoint Executive Producer Sergey Titov offered a limited apology to players angry about the Steam listing, which he says included both current features and some planned for future updates (the Steam page was updated a day or so after launch to clarify this distinction). He also suggested the vast majority of players were satisfied with the game and that only a few misinterpreted what was meant by the Steam description.

As soon as you get a developer blaming the gaming community for their inability to clearly communicate the state of finished product, you know have problem.

Reminds me of Blizzard or Peter Molyneux

Exactly. I havent purchased a Blizzard game since Warcraft II. I dont support devleopers/publishers that don't trust its paying customers and who put profits before the act making a good game.

Well, I bought this "Game" and I can tell you it was because it was hyped on the splash screen that loads with current steam sales when you first log in. I went to the product page and saw all sorts of cool features and figured, $12, this seems pretty cool.

What I got that was advertised on the feature list was basically "there are servers and zombies".

It's fraud. There was nothing ambiguous about their descriptions. Features listed did not exist. Publishers have been pushing the envelope on this for years and we shouldn't be surprised that we're at this point now. They've trained us to accept broken releases with the promise that they'll be fixed with future patches. Often those patches never come (I don't buy anything from Paradox).

They're able to get away with this because, unlike every other product a consumer purchases, their customers have no recourse. You can't return software.

You can't return software because once you install it they have no way to know if it's uninstalled when you bring it back...

Wait a second, that was their excuse in the 80s and the 90s.

It really doesn't apply now. With always online requirements and current DRM they are fully able to disable software once it's installed.

Now the only reason to not allow returns is the fear that consumers will actually return software when it fails to deliver.

Now keep in mind I don't disagree the deceptive description is wrong. The game was misrepresented - but not in the heinous manner that much of the outcry suggests. I just think the level of attention on this is, in my opinion, a bit out of proportion. Regardless, the issue has been both recognized and rectified by Steam quite quickly.

But no, these correlations are not appropriate. Let's disregard the fact that comparing a BMW and a $15 game is silly. It is not a one-time delivery like your steak or BMW. Like it or not that's not the MMO business model, you are paying for a service. It would be one thing if it just didn't work at all (which technically was the case for many recent high profile titles - Diablo 3 / KOTOR). So then if it does work we are arguing over features -or lack thereof- where you very quickly start splitting some fine hairs. It's not too different a situation - if you are looking for an analogy- from all the crap you could order in the back of the Popular Science back in the day.

If this is your first MMO purchase, I apologize but it is the unfortunate reality of the business. I think the best way to change this is speak with our dollars and carefully consider our purchases (sale or not).

If there's a lesson here, it's don't buy things on description alone.

Well, keeping with the theme, it's like if every Outback served a 4 ounce steak in place of the 12 or 16 ounce. Additionally, there are certain levels of bug fixes that are to be expected, salt, pepper, maybe A1, butter, etc. These aren't specifically on the menu, but they are industry standard.

You're not buying a buffet that might contain steak, chicken, assorted vegetable, and maybe desert, you're buying a specific menu item, that had a description of a few concrete things. We can all agree that your interpretation of "delicious reduction" and mine might be completely different, I may not find it delicious at all, despite what 10 reviews thought. But telling me there's a 16 oz steak, potatoes, and veggies when I receive only part of that, is deceptive.

edit: Also, I'm not sure if the "you" is all encompassing, or referenced to me specifically, I've bought plenty of MMO's in the past, but I never bought this game.

It's a slippery slope for Steam. They can lock down tighter on when and how games can be released with the potential backlash of being seen as becoming more like iOS. It's incredibly difficult for any service like this to nail down the 'proper' amount of regulation.

Just checking that the game description is accurate doesn't require iOS-like arbitrary content restrictions.

I'm fine with a game developer saying, "Here is what we have implemented, and here is what we plan to implement in the future." However, false claims about the functionality of the released version are unacceptable.

Exactly. Nothing more draconian than ensuring that the description is accurate is needed.

Maybe I'm a dick, but I don't buy a game on Steam unless I see a MetaCritic rating next to it.

I didn't see a MetaCritic score on War Z when I looked at it, so I skipped right over it.

I know this kicks a lot of Greenlight games in the nuts, but I'm not interested in buying another game until I hear others feedback on it.

Whether I agree with that rating or not is irrelevant; I just want proof that others have played the game. There have been times a meta-critic review made me realize the game wasn't what I thought it was going to be, or pointed out some make-or-break points that influenced my purchase decision.

I'm sorry, but I've just been suckered into marketed hype on the box in the past. Got burned on shitty games. Not doing it again.

So basically, every feature in the game description should have had an * behind it with a 2 page explanation in 4-point font on the very bottom explaining that what they described was the top-end of what they had planned and not exactly what you should expect.

Wow... I'm trying to be snarky, but god damn, that pretty much hits it on the head.

I draw a line between "Some things aren't working as well as we would like and we plan on adding more content later, and there may be some bugs we haven't found yet" and "There are advertised features we haven't implemented, other advertised features only have alpha functionality, but they game engine does load up and you can do some stuff in it already."

They are not even in the same ball park. Words like "finished" and "done", even "gone gold" only cover up the root difference between these two states. As far as programming flow goes, the you have alpha then beta then release, these steps are not ballpark figures. If you are in alpha, you can't just say "That's just, like, your opinion, man," and then release it.

In short, what they have done is very shady, and they are hiding behind day 1 patches from other companies as an excuse for why they sold alpha code to consumers.

The problem with punishing a developer by making the pay and wait for updates to be vetted is that it actually punishes the users. Users would need to wait for patches that fix sometimes critical bugs, or even worse a situation like what happened with Fez could arise, and no patch comes at all because the developer doesn't want to, or can't, pay for it.

Now, making the developer wait and pay for future initial releases is actually a decent idea, since it wouldn't hurt users who have already paid good money.

At the very least, they need giant-ass "alpha" and "beta" icons that make it very, very clear that a game is early in the development stages.

This is especially important with Greenlight, as quite a lot of the games in that section are in early development, with all the issues one would expect from such things, and the steam pages don't provide nearly enough information about the current state of those games. A lot of folks aren't going to think to check the webpages and stuff to see what stage the development's in, how frequent the update cycle is, etc.

Why are we so upset at Steam? It's the developer that released an incomplete game and was at best misleading (and at worst outright lying) about the game's features. If they released it in boxed retail, we wouldn't gripe about how GameStop or Walmart was too lax about what they sold.

People have more esteem for, and therefore higher expectations of, Valve. They're supposed to be the good guys!*

* and they are the vast majority of the time

dawesdust_12 wrote:

I was outraged that I purchased TF2 in an incomplete state.

After purchase, they had the gall to add like 20 maps, and like 3000 different items.

Post-release updates are not cool.

It's hilarious that this post is being downvoted. Put on your sarcasm detectors, people.

Either a game is finished or it isn't. The idea that someone can release a product that's chock-full of bugs needs to be stomped on by gamers refusing to purchase from that publisher.

I must admit that I have a library of several hundred Steam games, none of which were purchased on release, so I have not (yet) encountered this idea of releasing a buggy game. To me, it's just another reason not to buy games immediately, but wait for the sales.

As a comparison, what kind of reaction would there be if Peter Jackson released "The Hobbit Part 1" (or whatever it's called) as an "almost-finished" product? "We just have to finalise the editing and fix up some sound issues. That'll happen over the next few months, and we will also add the scene involving the trolls at that point". Film watchers would be livid - why aren't gamers?

It's a slippery slope for Steam. They can lock down tighter on when and how games can be released with the potential backlash of being seen as becoming more like iOS. It's incredibly difficult for any service like this to nail down the 'proper' amount of regulation.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here but... How about a game isn't released until it's actually done. Too draconian?

That's not too draconian. The problem is defining when a game is "done." If you want to wait until absolutely EVERY issue is fixed, and the game no longer needs to be touched, you're likely gonna have to wait a lot longer between games. You're also, theoretically, eliminating the possibility of fixing massive bugs that don't show up until after release, and the idea of improving games through regular updates (rather than massive, irregular expansion packs).

Trying to declare games as "done" could create as many problems as it solves, is what I'm saying.

Why are we so upset at Steam? It's the developer that released an incomplete game and was at best misleading (and at worst outright lying) about the game's features. If they released it in boxed retail, we wouldn't gripe about how GameStop or Walmart was too lax about what they sold.

People have more esteem for, and therefore higher expectations of, Valve. They're supposed to be the good guys!*

* and they are the vast majority of the time

dawesdust_12 wrote:

I was outraged that I purchased TF2 in an incomplete state.

After purchase, they had the gall to add like 20 maps, and like 3000 different items.

Post-release updates are not cool.

It's hilarious that this post is being downvoted. Put on your sarcasm detectors, people.

Sarcasm detectors are working just fine. What you quoted is something else, something having to do with not having understood the situation at all.

See the point is that TF2 didn't get released promising "up to 20 maps and 3000 different items". It delivered what it promised. If you read the story you will see that The War Z promised a whole lot of things that just weren't there.

Promising, delivering and then being given extras as time goes by is very different to promising, not delivering, and telling you to be patient while they get around to it.

Kyle Orland / Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in Pittsburgh, PA.